The Devil Walks Again

[ Andrews Air Force Base, U.S.A. ]

"We must rescue Tony at all costs!" Rhodes tried to fire up his unit, but Daisy could tell the words bounced off them like blanks.

The soldiers wore the same dull, disinterested faces. Talking about sacrifice or national pride meant nothing here. No one was willing to die for a billionaire arms dealer they'd never met.

Elite American troops existed—Punisher of the 6th Marines, the Golden Jaguar of the Secret Force—but they were rare. These men? Daisy watched them sneaking glances at their phones. She didn't need a combat report to know they were useless.

Though she wasn't technically under Rhodes' command, she still went through basic briefings with her own people to maintain appearances.

Together, Rhodes' airmen and her analysts made up the so-called rescue team.

The agents assumed the soldiers were hardened warriors; the soldiers looked at the agents and saw action-movie props. Both sides expected the other to do the heavy lifting.

Daisy quickly realized the soldiers were even more mediocre than she'd expected. A few were texting; the others were busy comparing sunscreen brands. She leaned toward Rhodes and asked, "What exactly is your position? If it's classified, forget I asked."

He answered without hesitation, "Not classified, Agent Johnson. I head the weapons development division."

Daisy's expression barely twitched. That said it all. These weren't frontline soldiers—they were technicians and desk-jockeys. Just like her data agents. If she removed herself from the equation, this entire team had about as much chance against the Ten Rings as a high school debate club.

...

[ En route to Afghanistan ]

The Air Force took command of the rescue mission, deploying a C-17 transport to ferry them into Afghanistan. The plane was loaded with gear, stacked tight enough to make breathing feel optional.

Comfort wasn't part of the equation. The Quinjet was faster, sleeker, but Daisy didn't need to flaunt that. She stayed buckled in, eyes fixed on the tablet containing every shred of intelligence on Stark's disappearance.

Most of it confirmed what she already knew. Obadiah was likely behind it—at least eighty percent certainty. Military informants claimed tensions between the two men had escalated after the Ice Bucket Challenge.

Daisy dismissed that theory with a faint curl of her lip. That had "Republican distraction" written all over it. Absurd.

Rhodes was doing his part, making endless calls to bases and allied outposts. Without stealth features, the C-17 needed safe corridors cleared if they didn't want a sky full of missiles.

When he finished coordinating, he came over to review the tactical plan with her.

Daisy, of course, already knew Stark was being held in a cave—most likely still unconscious. But she couldn't guarantee some butterfly effect hadn't changed things. One errant piece of shrapnel could rewrite the timeline.

While Rhodes laid out basic proposals, Daisy kept her mind on the map. The Ten Rings weren't hiding in a facility. It was a cave. Unmarked. Off-grid.

Afghanistan had no shortage of mountains, and with them, no shortage of caves. Tracking a ghost in a desert of shadows.

But considering that after Stark escaped from the cave, his cavemade armor drew a graceful arc and fell into the desert, Daisy narrowed the target area a little.

Surrounded by mountains, with narrow access paths and heavy desertification beyond, Daisy focused her search on regions matching those criteria.

Rhodes glanced at the scattered maps and the complex calculations Daisy was sketching beside them. He couldn't make heads or tails of them—but her composure made it clear she could.

"Any clues?" he asked, wary but hopeful.

She gave a noncommittal answer, "I've narrowed the search range. Probably."

Rhodes silently marveled at how quickly she'd pulled that off. He was still lost in topographical noise, while she was already isolating signal.

"Where?" he pressed, stepping closer.

Daisy indicated a segment on the map. "The kidnappers were well-armed. They wiped out trained soldiers. That takes organization and capability."

Rhodes almost countered that point—given the quality of those soldiers, that wasn't too impressive—but he kept quiet, as his own unit wasn't battle-tested either.

"Currently, no tribe or organization has claimed responsibility for this incident," Daisy went on, voice even. "Which means they are a secret armed force. There is a high probability that this armed force is hidden deep in the mountains. And there are quite a lot of them. I think they are hiding around some tribes that are hostile to the U.S. military."

She traced her fingers along the inked borders. "This stretch here—the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. There are many mountains here, and the local tribes are very hostile. It has never been a place where the US military has set foot. Perfect for vanishing off the grid."

Rhodes' brow furrowed. She was right, which only made things worse.

As this would increase the difficulty of the mission dramatically. It would be too difficult to find a group of militants in the territory of a hostile tribe.

...

[ Afghanistan ] 

But to save Tony, Rhodes swallowed his pride and went base to base, appealing to reluctant commanders for backup.

Backup, of course, meant troops to compensate for the incompetence of their own rescue team.

No one was eager to help, but after enough coaxing, a few finally agreed to lend limited support.

With those reluctant nods, the original twenty grew to fifty. Rhodes scrounged up two CH-47s, three military Humvees, and—at Daisy's pointed insistence—a mobile RV, allegedly for "female hygiene."

The team also scored two Black Hawks and an arsenal of heavy weapons—on loan, not gifted. Both Daisy and Rhodes agreed: let Stark cover the bill if he made it out alive.

The full contingent now counted forty men and ten women—Daisy, Mockingbird, three female agents, and five female soldiers among them.

They launched from Bagram Air Base, convoy heavy, sweeping the Afghan-Pakistan border for signs of the Ten Rings.

The show of force took some edge off the anxiety. Helicopters overhead, weapons stocked—it felt more like a parade than a rescue.

Rhodes, in full campaign mode, promised a Stark-funded bonus for anyone who helped bring him home.

Daisy, watching the barren sweep of sand from her chopper, felt the isolation creep in. The desert below was vast, yellow, and lifeless—like the earth had been stripped bare of humanity.

Though from the air, that emptiness was poetic. On foot, that same desert would be a slow death in disguise.

To Be Continued...

---xxx---

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